It's the one-year anniversary of Jack Thompson's permanent disbarment and to celebrate the occasion, the disgraced former attorney has announced his imminent return to the practice of law.

It's been awhile since we've had any news from Thompson, the game-hating ex-lawyer who was permanently disbarred by the Florida Supreme Court for his crazy antics and gross misconduct both in and out of the courtroom. While he fought loud and long against the decision, he was ultimately forced to throw in the towel. Or so we thought.

But now, after several months of relative silence, he's back! Thompson sent an email to GamePolitics last week in which he claimed that, thanks to a technical error, he was never actually disbarred at all. "The Florida Supreme Court, in violation of the laws of Florida assigned to Thompson's case a referee from Florida's Eleventh Judicial Circuit, rather than from the state's Second Judicial Circuit, where he would have received a fair trial. Bar counsel hid this fatal defect not only from Thompson but from the Florida Supreme Court as well," he wrote. "What this means is that Thompson literally was never disbarred."

As a result, Thompson said he's going to re-hang his shingle on October 1 and has actually dared Mary Ellen Bateman, who's responsible for prosecuting the "unlicensed practice of law" on behalf of the Florida Supreme Court, to try to stop him. "Unless she acts, he's back in business," he continued, "and the children of this country will have returned to them the lawyerly labors of a man who... forced Take-Two, along with Senator Hillary Clinton to recall all copies worldwide of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, which cost Take-Two tens of millions of dollars."

I have absolutely no idea if Thompson's argument has any merit to it, but given his near-delusional behavior as his law career went up in smoke, I rather doubt it. Furthermore, GamePolitics said it asked "a few members of the legal community" to have a look at his argument and the general consensus is that Thompson "doesn't really have a leg to stand on."

It's less a question of the merits of his argument, then, and more a bet on whether Thompson just goes ahead and starts playing lawyer again anyway - and what will happen if he does. My inclination, based on his many past promises to rain down fire and destruction which ultimately came to naught, is that October 1 will pass quietly; but you better believe I'll be watching, just in case.

TheTygerfire:This guy lost all credibility when he went after Bully without actually looking at the game. Yeah, my deadly POTATO GUN is really just like Columbine...

One of our text books in 8th grade blamed the Columbine incident on Video Games. It was just a normal text about it, but out of nowhere, it just said "Yeah, and they played Doom in their spare time." It was so random.

The children of this country have a selfless self-righteous man to stick up for them! Wow, that's great!

In all seriousness though, screw minors, if banning them from playing games means I can play whatever I want without a rating system interfering and censoring games, so be it.

EDIT: GREAT IDEA. Every adult gamer should chip in to buy a legal team for us, and we should sue the government for discrimination and hate speech, using experimental data which shows games are actually a vent, not an agitator/trigger device.

As a result, Thompson said he's going to re-hang his shingle on October 1 and has actually dared Mary Ellen Bateman, who's responsible for prosecuting the "unlicensed practice of law" on behalf of the Florida Supreme Court, to try to stop him. "Unless she acts, he's back in business," he continued, "and the children of this country will have returned to them the lawyerly labors of a man who... forced Take-Two, along with Senator Hillary Clinton to recall all copies worldwide of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, which cost Take-Two tens of millions of dollars."

I say no one will be glad to hear yet another idiot has come into power. >_<

Since I finally played GTA4, I have a comment about that image. He does realize that the main moral lessons of GTA4 are that the criminal life sucks ass, drugs and drunk driving will get you killed, and that the glorification of gang life is retarded? Seriously, there's enough material in that game to write a ten-page paper just on that alone.

Oh wait, I forgot: he never played the game.

I can't wait for him to try and get back into law, only to instantly get shut down.

Frank_Sinatra_:Even if there was a mishap in the system they'll just... Wait, shit double jeopardy.

Well welcome back Jack I'm sure everyone in the courts will take you even more seriously now that you are having a triumphant return.

I'm pretty sure that(especially considering some of the other psychotic things he's done.)that he's full of crap and will get whatever penalty there is for practicing law without a license. Or if that's not the case and he's actually right maybe he'll be disbarred at the federal level to never again ignorant fear-monger with any real power. Instead he'll be relegated to the much safer position of ignorant fear monger.

delusion can only stay quiet for so long. I pity Jack, I really do. He doesn't realize that he is banging his head against progress and thought and expression, because that's what games are. A great medium for expression and learning, just like film and books but with an interactive element that is unique to gaming. He's basically fighting a losing battle, because you cannot shoot down ideas...Ideas are bulletproof, so says V.

Frank_Sinatra_:Even if there was a mishap in the system they'll just... Wait, shit double jeopardy.

I'm fairly sure that double jeopardy doesn't apply to disbarment, but I might be mistaken.

Jack's back..uh...k? He wasn't exactly a huge threat to gaming when he was a lawyer, he'll be even less so now that he's suffered a disbarment - even if the lawyers did botch it (which they might not have done anyway).